Cornell returns four players next season that shot at least 38% or better from beyond the arc in Ivy League conference games a year ago. The Big Red also return three double figure scorers. These players include:

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Jonathan Gray and Anthony Gatlin should be added to this list of six returning upperclassmen as team members who performed well during their allocated minutes in 2010-11.

Together, the group has shown the potential to form an eight man rotation that has the necessary size, depth, and skill to drive a credible Big Red title run this winter. Look across the league. No other team brings back this much experienced depth.

A couple teams (e.g., Brown and Harvard) send a more proven Top Five/Six onto the court. However, they have noone past that core to allow their starters to get the in-game rest that enables them to go full-tilt over a ~30+-game schedule and, particularly, in the last 8-10 minutes of Saturday Ivy road contests.

Even Yale's top four players are right up there with the Top Five/Six of Harvard and Brown, but the Bulldogs' "second four" does not appear as ready as Cornell's "second four." All the other teams have either returnees with known chronic health problems or such insufficient returning manpower in either the frontcourt or backcourt, that they will need extraordinary contributions from newcomers to be in the chase.

First off, we are huge Gatlin and Gray fans. We also like Chemerinski and Figini. But all of these guys are going to get tested and pressured by the freshmen.

The best guys will play. If the rookies are not ready, time will go the vets. If the rookies are ready, they could replace the vets who are not getting the job done.

Now for predictions:

Just as Sean McGonagil, Miles Cartwright and Laurent Rivard did a year ago at other Ivies, we expect at least one Cornell freshman, and possibly as many as 4-5 of them, to play HUGE roles for Cornell in '11-'12. We are predicting at least 3 Cornell rookies to earn regular rotation minutes by December.

LaMore is a big and strong kid who can defend, rebound and give you some back to the basket offense, even as a rookie. He will contend for early minutes inside. Our hunch is that he is in Cornell's top 7-9 guys by December.

We are also pretty confident that you will see Cancer and Cherry in the regular rotation at guard with Ferry and Wroblewski. We'll see if Gray, Matthews Asafo-Adjei or Scelfo earns that 5th guard role.

Miller is a freakish athlete and can shoot. He'll play immediately, but the question is whether he'll play behind Peck, or whether they use him at power forward. Groebe is the other small forward.

Both CBB and ANON 12:50 have not mentioned something significant about Cornell’s returning group of eight upperclassmen.

The Red closed the 2010-11 season on a 6-3 run, losing only to Harvard and Princeton. They even took the champion Tigers to the last ten seconds at Newman Arena. That late season charge gave the Red a legitimate claim to being the league’s third best team at the end of the season. With Princeton’s graduation and coaching losses, they will fall back, leaving Cornell to be seriously considered as the second-best team at this point.

What is remarkable is that these eight guys played two-thirds of the minutes in those last nine games. They were at the heart of that run. Sure, 2011 graduates Adam Wire and Mark Coury gave them a lot of help. Thus, there are probably some frontcourt minutes available for LaMore, Giddens, and/or Tomic. Other than that, these eight guys seem to have the upper hand.

Looking at the individuals’ stats, not that much jumps out for at least five of them, so one must conclude that, as a group, the whole appears to be greater than the sum of the parts. As the season drew to a close last year, this group took their opportunity to do the most unique thing they could, prove that they play well eight deep as a team on a D-1 court, apparently doing many little off-stat-sheet things that win games. Yes, like the Class of 2010, they mesh well as a team.

The coaches have recruited a fabulous crew of new individuals. Still, it is going to be difficult for the newcomers to dent this returning rotation. There is no substitute for experience of a positive sort. The new guys not only must get up to D-1 speed and excel as individuals, but also have to mesh as team players with many new colleagues. With no apparent voids or weak performers in the returning lineup, that is a tall order.